From the sacred to the profane

When I rolled into recovery, a big piece of my issues dealt with my concept of myself and self esteem. Growing up a fat kid, I was isolated from the typical adolescent dating experience until I lost 50 pounds in high school. I received male attention for the first time in my life. I found it confusing and it made me dizzy. For the first time in my life, I had to learn to assess a man's character verses his desire to get between my legs.

Addiction creates a constant struggle to keep your sexuality sacred when everything around you is profane. Heroin took the place of sex. I had no desire but I still had to perform. We learn tips to lose our bodies while our mind travels to a better place.

In residential treatment, there was ten men for every woman. The men placed bets on who was going to sleep with which female. The guys that caught my eye were a mirror of my addiction. I went out on a pass to fuck a guy who had just completed treatment. He lived in a hotel four blocks from the rehab. He barely spoke English. I speak very little Spanish. At least we used a condom. The sex was  horrible. I was so ashamed of my choice. I could have been kicked out of treatment. I took a shower and told no one.

After telling myself never again, I did something similar a few months later. I went to a cheap hotel with hourly rates, maybe the Dahlia or the Dalt, to fuck a guy from the neighborhood. He didn't have any identification so he couldn't come up to my room in the transitional house. He was best friends with a drug dealer I was friends with at the time. The poor decisions were piling up.

When he took his pants off, I was horrified by the size of his enormous penis. It was almost down to his knee. If we would have ever kissed or hung out like normal people I would have been aware of this. I told him "all of that isn't going to fit in me". Nor did it fit in a regular condom. He left a ring of shame, bite marks two inches wide in a semi circle around my neck. I was so afraid of that monster dick, I didn't notice. I had to walk around with the ring of shame for a week. I had to tell my women's group about my poor choices. I had to go to work looking like a victim of a choking incident. I had to stay clean. 

The final straw was a few months later. He was in recovery. We knew each other from our addiction. He had a year clean. He came over to watch football. Ha. We ended up all over my room. As big as I am, he spun me around twenty ways. He strained all of the muscles in the inside of my legs. I couldn't walk right for five days. And he didn't call me. I obsessed over him. Why didn't he call me? I paged myself to make sure my pager was working. I picked up the phone to make sure it was on the hook. I had to limp into my women's group and tell someone. I was in the grips of obsessive and compulsive behavior. I told myself. " if I don't get a sponsor and work the steps, I am going to use". I felt like you feel after you promise yourself you aren't going to use then use anyway. I decided I would never, in life, give myself away to some one who did not deserve me. I have kept that promise to myself.   I had to spend many years alone to learn my boundaries.

When someone wants me, my first question is why? My second question is what are your expectations of me? My physical self is too important to squander.  Love yourself today. Learn from my mistakes. Celebrate the self.